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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26767072">Eggshells [rewrite]</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/catbuns/pseuds/catbuns'>catbuns</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Short &amp; Sweet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:20:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,937</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26767072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/catbuns/pseuds/catbuns</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When they meet, John is 23, and Dave is half-naked on the roof.</p><p>Fluffy one-shot of some boys being in love.</p><p> </p><p>[Reposting an edited version of this story written around a couple years ago. Same title and general plot as before, just with significant edits and (in my opinion) improvements!]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Egbert/Dave Strider</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Eggshells [rewrite]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they meet, John is 23, and Dave is half-naked on the roof.</p><p>--</p><p>Dave squats in front of a small desk fan. The fan pushes air out weakly, timidly circulating warm air around the room. Sweating was a 24/7 occupation: Texas summer settled into Dave’s apartment, and its heat, just like your roommate’s girlfriend who you never intended to live with, refused to leave (despite not contributing any rent, that fucker). His A/C unit broke last year, and a mix of pride and poor finances guaranteed it would stay broken. Clothes were discarded, underwear long since established as the season’s uniform. Goose bumps freckle Dave’s skin, pricked with sweat, but the sensation barely registers. </p><p>Tipping away from the fan, Dave can’t remember what it feels like to not be hot, to not be sweating. Is winter real, or just a lie our bros tell us in childhood to make us eat our vegetables and go to bed before 10pm?</p><p>Dave exhales slowly through his nose and stands, ripping the fan’s plug from the wall as he rises. He reaches for the nearest shirt, tugging it over his head as he exits his apartment and heads for the stairs.</p><p>--</p><p>John scans the countless still-packed boxes lining the walls of his apartment. Crouching to the floor, he reaches for a box labeled “Linens” but stops himself; he distinctly remembers his father packing this one. He eyes the box suspiciously, and pushes it aside, deciding to tackle any awaiting pranks in the morning. John imagines his dad at home, patiently waiting for John to call, enraged by the loss of precious prankster’s gambit.</p><p>John stands, stretching his legs. He didn’t have a specific reason for moving to Texas; honestly, he had no reason at all. And in even further honesty, John hated hot weather. But, so far in his life, John had only ever moved somewhere with meticulous intention. Moving to Texas with minimal understanding of moving to Texas seemed like the perfect way to spend his 20’s. Or a sadly complicated performance of naivety. Hard to tell.</p><p>--</p><p>Dave lays out on the concrete of the roof, letting his skin settle into its warmth. The sun had already set, cooling the surrounding air a few pathetic degrees. Dave blinks at the sky above him, picking out the few stars he could between dusty clouds. To be more accurate, he eyed the exactly three stars ever visible given the city’s light pollution. Laying on the roof was less of a venture into astronomy and more of a practice in distinguishing a plane from a pinpoint of burning gas. He’s kind of an expert.</p><p>“Oh!” Dave feels the universe drift away from him. He props himself up to see an eager, messy boy striding across the roof.</p><p>“I didn’t realize anyone else was up here!” He sounds amazed, as if appreciating the night sky was novel. There’s only three stars, dude. Dave settles back down and lifts a hand in acknowledgment.</p><p>“Ah, I’m John!” He chirps. Clearly the name of a dork. Dave hears his footsteps pat along the roof, stopping behind Dave’s head.</p><p>“Dave Strider,” Dave responds. John takes his response as an invitation (missing the humor in Dave’s abnormal formality; both first and last name thrown at this stranger’s feet with a flaccid enthusiasm), sitting himself down perpendicular to Dave. </p><p>John begins to babble, telling Dave about his recent move from Washington ( it’s so hot here, dave! how do you survive? ) to the fifth floor of his apartment complex ( you live on the fifth floor too? gosh, dave, guess you have no choice but to be friends with me! ha ha! ). John’s thirst for Dave’s attention is endearing. He has a gift for carrying conversation and his words land light on Dave’s ears despite the energy each syllable bleeds. Dave finds himself enamored with the way John exaggerates his stories and over plays his expressions. The timbre of John’s laugh is melodic and contagious, and its chime pools inside Dave’s stomach.</p><p>--</p><p>Dave is so weird! And he’s totally not wearing pants! But his wit and sense of humor meet together so charmingly that John is genuinely interested in every strange thing Dave says. John has never met someone like Dave, someone whose rhetoric is so intentional it sounds lyrical. Yet, Dave lacks pretension, and the performativity of his behavior seems driven by his own amusement rather than attention. Their conversation initially tumbles between them awkwardly, and John clumsily fills its silence with anecdotes, most of which embarrassingly relate to Nicholas Cage. But Dave is easy to talk to, even easier to listen to, and their words fill the space of 3 hours before John realizes he’s exhausted. They exchange contact information, and John excuses himself, thanking his good luck in meeting someone so interesting on his first day in Houston.</p><p>John knows that he has an agreeable personality, arming him with impressive patience and flexibility in social interaction. However, John can’t remember ever experiencing ease and comfort in meeting someone new the way he felt in meeting Dave.</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>John is 24 when he realizes his relationship with Dave is unique. He is sitting at a coffee shop after work, blankly staring into his mug while he tries to remember how having a best friend felt before meeting Dave. John met Dave as the result of random circumstance, but John finds it increasingly difficult to ascribe coincidence to the way Dave’s presence saturates his life. John thinks maybe they were fated to meet but saying so would sound silly so instead he takes a sip of coffee.</p><p>John cautiously subscribes to the idea of soulmates in the way he loosely believes flossing is important. Part of him thinks it’s bullshit, that if you spend enough time with anyone your personalities and lives will naturally shape together, and that’s not the result of any special cosmic will, but just simple social adaptation. But John also thinks he should feel sick of Dave when he doesn’t, feel annoyed with Dave’s affectations when he doesn’t. Soulmates can be platonic, and John figures you probably meet many soulmates over the course of your life, but he never contemplated their existence before meeting Dave. John isn’t so dense as to miss this connection in the timeline of his thoughts, and the implication of his own speculation places a weight in his chest.</p><p>The word “soulmate” feels heavy in his mouth.</p><p>John isn't necessarily uncomfortable with his sexuality; at least, he tells himself such when navigating internal and external conversations addressing the topic. He does feel a strangeness, however, when dreaming of a future seemingly contrary to prior expectations. "Uncomfortable" is definitely inaccurate; John believes most anyone would feel strange deconstructing 20 years of romantic and sexual logic (built, of course, from mainstream media and culture). Stranger still, having this deconstruction catalyzed by a complexly intimate friendship. John's sexuality doesn't make him uncomfortable, but hypothetically mutating his relationship with Dave sparks a deep, overwhelming uneasiness for which John struggles to find tolerance. John fears the unpredictability of romance: friendships are safe, malleable. Durable.</p><p>John peers into his mug. His drink is gone, and a sprinkle of rogue coffee grounds freckle the ceramic bottom of the cup. John's eyes squint at the grounds, as if trying to decipher some kind of meaning in their pattern. Of course, there is no meaning, and, of course, John is not exceptionally surprised nor disappointed. He breathes deep and stands from his table, collecting his things to head home. Coffee dregs are not going to provide him with some kind of divine direction or advice; John will have to chart his own navigation. What bullshit.</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>They decide to move in together a few months before Dave’s 25th birthday. Dave says it’s to save money, but he knows he’s looking at the surface of a pool deeper than he is able to swim. Dave was perfectly capable of paying rent before he met John, is still perfectly capable of paying rent, and definitely is in no state of financial strain so dramatic to warrant sharing his already small apartment with another human. Yet, two months prior, John spent an entire day moving his things over, and his name was signed next to Dave’s on the lease agreement.</p><p>And now they are watching late night infomercials in this shared apartment. Well, Dave is, while John lay unconsciously slumped into Dave’s side. Dave’s skin burns at the contact and so do his intentions, and he feels himself fizzling out with the effort to maintain composure. Dave looks at John’s closed eyes and imagines what his eyelashes would feel like brushing against his cheek. Dave wants to touch him but feels tense with prescriptive rejection.</p><p>--</p><p>John keeps his eyes closed and listens to Dave’s even pattern of breath. Dave probably thinks he is asleep, but every atom in John’s body is vibrating with energy as his face squishes into Dave’s arm. Dave’s skin is warm and smooth and, duh, of course it is, Dave is a human being that’s how human bodies are!! John holds in a breath when he feels Dave’s fingers gently brush under his eye. A maybe meaningless gesture if John were to think rationally (maybe there was a bug on his face?) but being rational is for losers and people not in love with their best friend. John tries to control the smile tugging at his lips and only nearly succeeds.</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>John is an expanding galaxy and Dave just turned 25.</p><p>Dave’s birthday party ended a few short hours prior, and John quietly moves around their apartment, half-heartedly cleaning up. He pauses to eye Dave, asleep on the sofa. Dave lay clumsily on his back, one hand tucked behind his head with the other resting on his chest. Even in his incapacitated state, his glasses perch evenly on the bridge of his nose. What a ridiculous guy! John almost feels admiration, but quickly digests the feeling into mischief. It’s rare to find Dave in such a vulnerable, prankable state, and John would be foolish to not take full advantage of such an opportunity. John has mercy for no one, not even birthday boys.</p><p>Ready with marker in hand, John prepares to draw a mustache and unibrow 2x combo. He braces his weight against the back of the sofa, stretching over and above Dave. John recognizes his self-indulgent behavior; positioning his body so close to Dave’s is neither discrete nor necessary to accomplish the task at hand. But, Dave is asleep, and the two of them, alone. No better justification for self-indulgence than that.</p><p>He reaches delicately down to remove Dave's glasses, silently sliding the shades off to reveal Dave's eyes, open and amused. Dave’s hand catches John on his withdrawal, freezing in time the evidence of John’s closeness (now lacking all justification in the present context, which finds the most important ingredient of John's justification- Dave’s unconsciousness- missing). John’s fingers release Dave’s glasses, and they bounce soundlessly onto Dave’s chest.</p><p>"What are you doing?" Dave asks, breath ghosting over John's cheeks. John lets himself hover above Dave and pauses to draw in a breath, oxidizing the stars building in his stomach and the butterflies clouding his chest. Dave’s lips are partly open, and John can see himself reflected in the glass of Dave’s eyes. John knows he should move back, pull his frame away and settle back into the cushion of his awkwardly timed humor. His cheeks are hot and red, and he expects Dave to ream him with some diss shitting on the poorly executed prank. But Dave is silent, meeting John’s eyes with a steadiness that makes his stomach bubble. John’s eyes flick down to Dave’s mouth and catch. He watches Dave's tongue instinctively flick across his lips to wet them, something which in another context would seem normal, just an ingrained reflex, but in the present moment, chips away at a dam John's been building for the last two years.</p><p>Dave is still holding John’s hand which has- oh god- begun to sweat. John plans to say something, offer his sanitized motive, but instead quietly clears his throat. Far too much time has passed since Dave’s question, and John feels his ulterior intentions saturating the brief space between them. His body tilts forward, as if being pulled by something unseen and uncontrollable.</p><p>”John?” Dave’s voice is near-whisper, and John blinks twice before realizing what he's doing, how close his face is to Dave’s, and he feels red hot panic spread in his chest. John, surprised and near bursting, jerks back, pulling his weight onto his feet. The hand that Dave held, now free, oddly hovers in the air, in limbo, unsure and anxious. John begins to stammer out an apology but stops when his eyes meet Dave’s. The words that catch on his lips expire, and John allows silence to fill the room in place of his rushed excuses. John’s hand floats back down to his side.</p><p>John doesn't offer an explanation, and Dave doesn't ask. Time passes.</p><p>--</p><p>What was that! What the fuck was that! Dave feels thankful for his poker face conditioned by an unorthodox childhood. Dave realizes there is a lot being left unspoken between him and John.</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>They are both 25, and Dave is certain that living with John has shortened his life span. There’s no scientific evidence, of course, but Dave is convinced he will spontaneously combust before he gets to 30.</p><p>“Come listen to this,” John chirps in Dave’s ear, leading him to the piano. John directs him to sit on the piano bench, inches separating their knees and shoulders (but aren’t inches miles on a map?).</p><p>Dave loves when John plays the piano, loves it even more when John plays the piano for him. Fingers dance across keys, eyes flutter shut, and music, old and somber, fills the room. John’s hands move as if made of string and rubber, bouncing and sliding from note to note, creating tones, perfect and charming. Dave loses himself in John the way John loses himself in music. Listening to John play feels nostalgic for a memory Dave doesn’t yet have, a confusing melancholic feeling lining his stomach as he silently watches John. Dave fumbles to find ways to express what fingers that move like liquid gold across piano keys make him feel.</p><p>He thinks he loves John but love is a four letter word that’s impossibly heavy, and he’s scared, full of opposing molecules pulling apart at the thought of telling John what tirelessly runs through his head. The words Dave wants to say catch in his throat and he tries to swallow, tries to savor their taste, but Dave finds himself losing his appetite for holding back.</p><p>“How was it?” With John’s words, Dave drags his eyes up from John’s fingers. Of course it was beautiful. The most beautiful shit he’s ever heard in all honesty. Dave states this in a monotone voice crafted for the opaque presentation of his emotions. John, of course, deflects the compliment (your words mean nothing to me! you just want me to tell you where i hid the last box of oreos, but i see through your ploy, dave! those oreos are betrothed to my stomach, and our relationship is monogamous, thank you very much.). Dave is buzzing with static, a quiet tangle of vibration echoing somewhere in his stomach. Dave’s stillness is contagious; John slowly freezes, his toothy smile falling flat as he tunes into the tenseness surrounding Dave.</p><p>“Uhh. Dave, what’s-” John chokes on his words, punctuating his sentence with a swallow instead of a conclusion. Dave’s organs burn with fear from what he’s about to do (Oh shit, is this spontaneous combustion?). Dave reaches up towards his shades, hand hesitating for a moment before pulling them off and placing them, folded, on the piano. John’s eyes track Dave as he shifts around the piano bench to face John, as he slides close to John’s side so their bodies are nearly flush. Dave hears his heartbeat in his ears and feels the skin on his chest tight from the heavy pounding of his nerves. He brings hands, shaky, slow, up to John’s face and</p><p>kisses</p><p>him.</p><p>--</p><p>Dave’s mouth is light and soft, his lips pressing cautiously against John’s. John’s skin prickles at the wetness of his mouth, surprised by how smooth Dave's lips feel. Dave's fingers start on the sides of John’s cheeks, fingertips barely brushing below his ears, but curl across John’s skin as their lips move. The pads of Dave’s fingers trail onto John’s neck and rest there, and John is trying not to lose his mind at the feeling of Dave’s tongue rolling over his top lip. Everything about the way Dave kisses is gentle and slow, completely lacking the hesitation John expected it to hold (because, of course, this moment is something closer to John's imagination than reality). Dave’s mouth barely parts open, but that’s enough to ruin John’s sense of clarity. Dave seems to command the time and space around them, seconds stretching sticky-slow as John slides a hand up Dave’s chest to his collarbone, uncertain fingers pulling Dave’s collar into a fist. John pulls at Dave’s bottom lip with careful teeth, biting just until he feels Dave’s fingernails dig into his skin. The kiss is still slow, but John feels the urgency tugging at their movements, and he is scared of the heat clustering in his stomach.</p><p>It’s only been a minute when Dave pulls back.</p><p>“Holy fuck.” he says.</p><p>John laughs, and pulls Dave in for another kiss.</p>
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